


caught off guard in between

by Cecile



Category: Sorted (Website) RPF
Genre: Angst, Friends With Benefits, M/M, fuck buddies, happy end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29794557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cecile/pseuds/Cecile
Summary: “A loveseat is for lovers”, James said, not looking at Mike.The exertion of the workday, the alcohol, the extended closeness was making Mike giddy. He felt bold, cocky even, so he winked and said: “You know what that means.”James’s hands stilled and he looked up. Didn’t make a noise, but waited expectantly for Mike to finish his sentence. He surely must know where this conversation was going, yet he wasn’t drawing away.So Mike suggested: “Wanna make out?”
Relationships: James Currie/Mike Huttlestone
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	caught off guard in between

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "The Beautiful Dream" by George Ezra
> 
> I was inspired by a very old quote (like, December 2019 old) that SordidFood posted in the Discord, namely:  
>  “Wait... you two have been dating for how long?”  
>  “Well, dating? A year”   
>  “But we’ve been fucking for close to three”  
> It was in relation to something completely different, but it just made my idea wheels spin.

Falling into bed with James had been so easy. It was someone or other’s birthday, and a Friday, too, so the workday was cut a bit short in trade for a birthday celebration, including cake and loads of alcohol. People had started to group off, so Mike used grabbing a new beer as an opportunity to survey the room and potentially choose a new group for conversation. He was about to join Barry, Jamie, and Hannah when he spotted that James was sitting alone on the loveseat.

He looked relaxed, sprawled out as he was; eyes closed, head on the backrest, his slight Adam’s apple exposed, skin flushed from the alcohol. He looked beautiful. Mike couldn’t help himself but want to be near him, so he crossed the room and flopped onto the empty seat next to James and, well, actually landed half on top of him, drawing a low “oof” from James.

“You alright, mate?”, Mike asked, the make-up of the loveseat dragging him closer to James.

James only let out a content “hmmm”, but drew an arm around Mike, who snuggled closer.

They sat like that in silence for a while, taking sips from their beers every now and then, watching the others talking and laughing, and what seemed like Jamie vehemently trying to stop Ben from juggling.

When his beer was empty, Mike asked. “Wanna join the others?”

He felt the hand around him tighten almost imperceptibly – in fact, he only noticed because he turned to look straight at James and realized their faces were a lot closer than he’d anticipated.

He felt the rumble in James’s chest when he said: “I’m really happy where I am right now, actually.”

And Mike couldn’t help but reciprocate the smile that was on James’s lips. God.

Until James ruined it with a pointed “On this one-person sofa which I’m sharing with someone else.”

Mike couldn’t help but laugh. “Hey, come on, it’s a loveseat.”

“A loveseat is for lovers”, James said, not looking at Mike, but instead thumbing at one of the buttons on his shirt.

The exertion of the workday, the alcohol, the extended closeness was making Mike giddy. He felt bold, cocky even, so he winked and said: “You know what that means.”

James’s hands stilled and he looked up. Didn’t make a noise, but waited expectantly for Mike to finish his sentence. He surely must know where this conversation was going, yet he wasn’t drawing away.

So Mike suggested: “Wanna make out?”

And James raised an eyebrow, left Mike hanging for just a fraction of a second, but then just said “Sure”, as if he’d just asked him if he wanted another beer. As if this was a regular thing they did. As if Mike hadn’t just mobilized every inch of his alcohol-induced confidence to have the plausible deniability of drunkenness the next Monday if things had gone south.

And then James was on him. Kissing him lazily, and pressing him further into the couch until Mike was no longer sitting, but laying down, the loveseat’s framework digging uncomfortably into Mikes left shoulder, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

There was no hurry to it, no need to get anywhere. They didn’t have sex that time, just kissing for the kisses’ sake. Mike was breathless, letting James do whatever he wanted and being fully on board. He probably would’ve let James fuck him right there on the couch with anyone to watch. But nobody was paying them mind, anyway, and he was just as content feeling the surprisingly soft beard against his chin and neck while his hands were exploring James’s muscled body.

Mike was completely enveloped in James’s scent, and they kissed for what felt like hours, until there was more and more time between each kiss, their need for intimacy satisfied that they were just lying next to and on each other.

It felt so surreal he almost thought the next day that he’d dreamt it, if it wasn’t for the love bites James had left all over his neck. Of course, the others teased him endlessly about the hickeys when he came back to work on Monday, but Mike teased right back about Barry puking into the flowerpots Ben kept on the balcony. He was afraid it might be awkward seeing James, but it wasn’t at all.

“You’ve got some lovely hickeys there”, James commented with a cheeky smile as he was chopping vegetables for a recipe lab.

“Hmmm, I wonder who I got those from”, Mike grinned back and, feeling cocky, nicked a piece of carrot before James could shoo him out of the kitchen.

Nothing changed between them. The bit of sexual tension that had been gradually building up between them was finally resolved, and they carried on like normal.

~~

That was, until a week later at another birthday (yes, birthday season was well and truly in session). They had found themselves on someone’s balcony, in a nice conversation with Ben, until Ben excused himself for the loo, accidentally pulled the balcony door closed behind him and locked them out.

Mike immediately realized the mistake, but tugged at the doorknob anyway and sighed when he was unsuccessful.

He turned back around to James to cheekily suggest another fondle (he’d had enough beer to feel confident), but James beat him to it.

“Wanna snog?”, he asked in such a matter-of-fact way, like _nothing else can be done_.

Mike almost burst out laughing at it and tried to reply with an equally as matter of fact “Why not?”, but was interrupted by James’s lips on his.

They were just as soft as the last time and Mike automatically rested his hands in James’s hair to keep his hands from roaming, because they would definitely go on autopilot to further explore the skin they’d felt last time.

James didn’t have as many qualms as Mike, slipping his hands into Mike’s pants, firmly grabbing onto his ass, and tugging him towards him.

“Oh, hello”, Mike murmured between kisses as he felt James’s hardness against his thigh. He searched for the button to James’s jeans and started tugging down the zipper.

“Mike, we’re at someone’s house”, James warned, but didn’t seem convinced by his own objection. “What are you going to do? Blow me?”

That sounded like an excellent idea, actually. How long had they been out there? Ten, fifteen minutes?

But before he could think about giving hands-on experience, he heard the door open with a rattle, and Mike instantly jumped back from James.

“There you are!” Barry stepped onto the balcony, completely oblivious to his interruption.

James made a beautiful strangled cough and was blushing head to toe when Mike caught his eyes. Mike needed to get out of there before he made a move, Barry be damned.

He clapped Barry on the shoulder and made his way to the door, earning a “Where are you going?”

And Mike told the truth – “Having a wank in the bathroom” – though he injected it with enough sass that Barry didn’t realize. Although it made James choke on his beer, so Mike couldn’t help himself but give him a cocky wink before he went to do what he’d set out to do.

~~

After that, it was like the floodgates had been opened. Mike couldn’t seem to keep his hands from James when it was just the two of them, and James wasn’t much better, either. Every celebration or get-together was somehow marked by a snog or a quick fondle with James, and late nights at the studio – James testing out new recipes, Mike finishing a video edit – tended to end with a blow-job on the love-seat.

“Do you want to split an Uber with me? We’re heading in the same direction”, James asked him after a night at the pub with the other guys.

But when they sat in the backseat of the car, and Mike asked, “We’re not splitting the fare, are we?”, James just said “Nope”, before attacking Mike’s lips.

And it was great. They hooked up about once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less – sometimes Mike just didn’t feel the need, other times he was as horny as he’d been at 15.

Somehow, none of the team had clocked that they were sleeping together – and Mike didn’t know if he should be relieved by that or offended. They weren’t particularly secretive about it other than avoiding actively being caught in the act by their friends (and it was Mike who needed to reenforce the “no fooling around in the studio if anyone else is there”-rule).

James’s beard was surprisingly soft, and the slight beard burn he did get was covered by his own stubble. But James somehow couldn’t keep himself from giving Mike a hickey or two, and Mike couldn’t make himself reenforce every rule, so “no love bites” went out of the window really soon, and Mike took to wearing turtlenecks to work more frequently because those hickeys just took so damn long to fade.

“So, do you want to bring your beau to the studio sometime so we can meet them?”, Ben asked at one point after Barry and Jamie had taken the piss out of him during another shoot, Mike bearing it with a smile because he didn’t actually mind (though he didn’t read the video comments too closely anymore, because some of them could be quite graphic).

“Nah, I’m good”, he waved it aside. “It’s just a casual thing.”

And it was. Somehow, their dynamic stayed the exact same as before. Mike was still as flirty as ever, though he couldn’t stop himself from slapping James’s bum every now and again – it just had the perfect size –, and James still carried the same dedication to sass.

It wasn’t a continuous thing – whenever either of them was seeing someone else, they stopped. But God, that three-month spell when James was in a serious relationship sure had been hard, especially when Mike couldn’t be bothered to go out and pick someone up for himself.

One day they were all in a really goofy mood while filming a _Pretentious Ingredients_ video, with James as one of the people in the hot seat. And no matter how uppity the ingredient, James somehow loved them all and gave them the ‘not pretentious’ badge of honor.

“You are impossible, mate!”, Mike commented.

“I like in-a-relationship-James”, Jamie disagreed. “You’re way less grumpy than usual.”

Mike froze and stared at James, because they’d been fucking again for two weeks.

“We broke up three weeks ago”, James unknowingly waved of Mike’s worry. “I’m just in a good mood. Been getting back into old hobbies.”

Head held high, looking straight at Mike, with a wink right at the end. The cheek of that man.

Mike laughed so hard he almost fell over.

~~

Almost two years after their first snog, Mike was surprised their arrangement was still working well enough. Girlfriends and boyfriends had come and gone for both of them, but they’d somehow always fallen back into each other’s arms.

The day it all changed was when Mike read through the comments of their latest video, an Ultimate Date Night Battle. He still did it frequently for quality control, and he loved peppering a few digs at his mates into his responses. But this time, there were so many comments about him. Him and James.

“James and Mike are a whole ass mood”

“What happened in the middle of this that made Mike so giddy? damn please share”

“That ass slap tho! @9:53”

“I know! I’d expect it from Mike, but JAMES?! Quiet, shy James?! Deceased.”

“Slap? That was the GRAB of a man who knows how to savour that ass”

He was mortified. Not that the moment had made it through the final edit, but that it had shifted the whole comment section from Barry robbing Jamie of a win to a two-second interaction.

He thought back to the day they had filmed the video. They’d made Ben and James dress up nice for it, made him put a rose in his mouth, and made him say the worst pick-up line in the book (“You come here often?”), and yet somehow it had worked on Mike.

His recipe, a lasagna, needed a 45 minute bake in the oven, with nothing to do in the meantime, while Barry and Jamie were working on their respective dishes.

“45 minutes in the oven – perfect amount of time for a nap, or a tumble in the sheets with your date”, he’d told the camera.

And then he did exactly that. While everyone was busy filming in the studio, he dragged James into the deserted loft for a snog. He’d broken his own rule of not fooling around in the studio when others were in, but he hadn’t been able to help himself.

Mike had set an alarm on his phone, so they were back down in the studio before anyone came looking for them. But having to go back on camera on jelly legs, after just having received the best blow job in his life, was impossible. So he was incredibly giddy for the rest of the shoot, pelting garden radishes at his friends as he was preparing a side salad and dancing along to any song that came into his mind.

And then James had walked by him on his way to watch Jamie, and slapped Mike’s ass, resting his hand on his bum cheek for an extra moment. Mike looked up, but there was no acknowledgement from James.

He’d not even realized that the cameras had picked it up, and when he’d seen the final edit of the video, Mike thought it was funny and left it in. But he’d not expected so many of the viewers to find it funny enough to comment on.

~~

The comments calmed down a day later, but Mike made them be more cautious after that; no more fooling around in the office at all, and definitely no more ass slapping. He didn’t actually know why it bothered him all of a sudden – it never had before, and there were always comments about shipping under their videos, no matter which combination of the guys was in the video. Probably because with the others, it wasn’t real.

But what truly fucked him up was a comment under a video two weeks later, with thousands of upvotes.

_“Get you a man who looks at you the way Mike looks at James”_

And worse, the reply:

_“Mike looks at James like James hung the moon”_

Was that really how he looked at James?

No, surely not.

He rewatched a few of their recent videos, and when he’d thought he was pretending to be interested in what James was saying, he had actually been staring at him sappily. So, yeah, if this wasn’t him, he’d totally believe the blond guy was into the ginger one.

But that was him. And he wasn’t into James like that. Was he?

~~

He had a wank and a long sleep over it – or rather, tossing and turning all night – and decided that no, he wasn’t in love with James.

His coworker James who greeted him, all smiley, when Mike came into work the next day, and who brought him a coffee after Mike told him he hadn’t slept well. And who made funny faces at Mike when Barry was dragging out a meeting too long.

James, who’d had five relationships in the past two years, while Mike had been in two. James who was happy to invite him in and reserve him a towel in his shower, but who also wasn’t shy about kicking him out of his flat after they’d had their fun.

James, whom Mike had asked to leave after sex at his place, but who’d always been gone by the next morning, with fresh coffee in the pot and, one glorious time, freshly bread in the oven.

James. His coworker James. His best friend James.

_Shit_. Mike almost had a cry about it. He’d been so happy that their friends with benefits arrangement hadn’t changed their dynamic. But it had changed, Mike just hadn’t noticed it before.

He was left brooding for the rest of the day, not really doing any work, pretending just enough so the others didn’t notice.

When it was time to leave, James came up to him and asked: “Do you want to grab a beer?”

Mike stopped dead in his tracks, one hand through the sleeve of his jacket, at the proposition right in front of their friends. Could he still sleep with James now that he was actively aware of his feelings? But he didn’t want to _stop_ having sex with James, either. That might make things weird. “I’m not in the mood”, he finally settled on.

“I really do mean a beer”, James explained. “You look like you had a rough day and could use one. It’s a Friday night and I don’t want you to dwell on it all weekend. Come on. Talk it out – or just sit in silence with me”, he quickly added when he saw the face Mike made.

Mike agreed. They’d not hung out just the two of them for a long time without it turning immediately into a snog or a quickie. Time to catch up.

~~

Or get drunk. Mike surely wasn’t going to breach the topic of his feelings, so they only talked about banalities and Mike watched James meticulously shred one beer coaster after another.

Mike listened to James explain a recipe he was in the middle of developing, and listened and listened and listened. He knew it was objectively boring stuff, and James kept cutting himself off, but God, Mike could listen to the man speak passionately all night long. He literally caught himself with his elbows on the table, chin resting on both hands. _Shit_.

And then James flirted with the waitress. And not even much, just a bit of banter because she wanted a good tip, no more than Mike would flirt with Jamie or Barry on a regular basis, just for the fun of it. And this wasn’t a date, so why was Mike even noticing? But it stung, even though he had no right to be hurt by it – they were just two mates who occasionally fucked.

So to rectify that, Mike emptied his drinks a bit faster than normal, and secretly ordered himself two shots while James was in the bathroom. The alcohol made it a bit easier to push his feelings down.

When they finally stumbled out of the bar, James asked him: “Are you all right?”

“I’m all better now, great talk!”, Mike answered, happy that he hadn’t forgotten why they’d gone out and that this hadn’t, in fact, been a date.

“No, I mean you’re a bit pissed”, James said. “You’ll have a hangover.”

They walked along the street with Mike holding on tightly to James’s arms because, yeah, he was a bit fucked up, actually. And couldn’t help but do a double take when he glanced up at James and saw the street lights reflected in his eyes. His green eyes crinkled into a smile when he caught Mike staring at him.

“Your eyes are radiant”, Mike said before he could stop himself. And then, because there was nothing quite like a bit of drunken brazenness, leant forward and gave James a gentle kiss.

James must have expected something more forceful because the surprised sound he let out before he kissed back made Mike’s heart sing.

When they finally disentangled, James said “All right, you’re coming home with me” and dragged him to the next cab he could find.

That had not been the plan. Or had it been? Mike didn’t know anymore, but now that he’d kissed James again, and more was on the table, he didn’t want to stop.

But as they got closer to James’s apartment, Mike got more unsure of himself. On the one hand, this was sex with James – he’d had sex with James plenty of times, it was great! On the other hand, he’d been jealous of the waitress earlier just because James had smiled when she asked about his shirt.

Could he really keep this arrangement with James when he was harboring feelings? Have sex with him and watch him flirt with others, get in relationships with others, and not be able to say anything about it?

When the cab stopped in front of the apartment complex, he’d made up his mind. But then they got out of it and James kissed him right against the door of the building, and Mike’s resolution was wavering.

One last time.

And so it was desperate, and needy. And Mike was too damn keen to read the wishes off of James’s lips, and make it the best night they’d ever had.

Because it would be the last one.

~~

When he woke up the next morning, he was dazed and confused, with his head throbbing and his mouth dry. When he realized that he was still in James’s bed, he got even more confused. He’d never spent the night there since the start of their arrangement.

He rolled to the side with a groan and spotted the glass of water on the nightstand. A pill was next to it, laying on a pink sticky note that just had a smiley face and three kisses on it. He took the aspirin and downed the water, instantly feeling a bit better.

“Mike, are you up?”, James yelled from the kitchen, and Mike could hear the sizzling of a pan. Breakfast the morning after. This felt too fucking domestic for what it was and Mike’s heart ached. He needed to get out of there.

He got out of bed and put his clothes back on – James must have collected them from where they’d left a trail the night before, because they were folded in a neat pile by the foot of the bed –, pocketed the sticky note, and quietly opened the bedroom door.

He knew his way around the place and had a clear line to the exit, so he went. As the front door was closing behind him, he heard another “Mike?”, but he’d already made it.

He didn’t stop walking until he reached the Tube station. As he waited for the train, he smoothed out his ruffled hair in the reflection of an advertisement, and spotted a few hickeys already starting to bloom on his neck. James hadn’t left those on him in a while, since Mike had made him stop after Barry and Jamie had reheated the same old jokes for the fifth time and ended it with “Seriously, aren’t you getting a bit old for those?”.

He pressed and worried at them for a bit, and smiled bitterly. They made him feel like he belonged. To James.

~~

He was able get rid of the hickeys with some cold spoons, so they were barely visible when he came into work on Monday.

He’d received a text from James when he got home, “ _You left so quickly. I made breakfast :(_ “ that Mike had answered with a “ _sorry, had to take care of some stuff_ ”. With _stuff_ being his heart.

When they found themselves with a moment alone in the studio, Mike breached the topic he’d been dreading all day. “I think we need to end our little arrangement.”

“Oh?”

“And I don’t mean for a few months while we’re seeing someone else, but permanently. Full-stop”, Mike said.

James didn’t say anything, so Mike felt the need to explain. “It’s always just one of us waiting around for the other. It’s not healthy.”

“Oh… okay.” James was nodding slowly. Great, good, he was very understanding.

“But we’re still mates, right?”, Mike asked after a few moments in silence, daring a shy smile. It was important to him. This wasn’t a break-up, this was just them refocusing their friendship, getting it back in line.

Mike watched James’s Adam’s apple bob in a swallow, and then turn his mouth into a grin, saying “Of course!”

So it was settled. Perfect. With a smile stuck to his face and the shards of his heart keeping together through the sheer force of will, he returned to his desk and to work.

~~

But they avoided each other after that. They filmed one video together that was so stilted they were forced to swap out Mike for Barry halfway through.

Mike thought he’d feel miserable not sleeping with James anymore, but found he didn’t miss it that much. No need to sneak around, plus he spent more time with the other guys.

He did miss his best friend, though. He’d been able to talk to James about anything and everything, but when he now texted Jamie an old vine of a guy mumbling his way through an interview with the singlecomment “Barry energy”, Jamie just did not understand at all.

“What happened between you and James?”, Ben asked him two weeks later, apropos of nothing.

They were alone in the studio, with most of the others out for lunch. Mike _did_ want to talk to someone about this, and Ben felt like he wouldn’t judge him too much (and also not share it with the others immediately), so he spilled the beans. “We had a friends with benefits-arrangement and it didn’t work out.”

“Well, I could have told you that from the start considering-“, Ben began.

“Oh, really? Did you know that it worked out brilliantly for almost two years until I realized I had feelings for him about a month ago?”, Mike asked angrily, already pissed at himself for agreeing to this conversation. He didn’t need Ben to rub his failings in further.

“You do? Because James said…”, Ben trailed off. After a few moments of deliberation, he said: “I think you need to have a long conversation with James.”

“Why? To humiliate myself?”, Mike asked. “No thank you.”

“Look at me”, Ben said and actually made the hand gesture, two fingers first pointing at his own eyes, then at Mikes’. “I want you two to talk _to_ each other, not _at_ each other. I think you two got your wires crossed.”

That pricked Mike’s ears, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up. _Got their wires crossed_. Ben wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t know something about James that Mike didn’t, right? He wouldn’t have said that unless he knew James was… into him, too?

Suddenly, Mike was giddy. He tried to tamper it down but failed. He’d never even considered that James might feel similarly, so now that the thought was on his mind, he couldn’t get rid of it, didn’t want to.

What was the worst that could happen? James wouldn’t speak to him anymore and it would be awkward. Tough shit, that already was the case, so he had nothing to lose.

When James finally came back from lunch, Mike immediately dragged him out of the door again with a “We need to talk”. James was wary but followed suit.

Mike had intended on finding a bench or a park, but after they’d rounded a corner, he couldn’t wait any longer and stopped to face James.

“We ended things really weirdly and I feel like I should explain”, he started.

“It’s okay, I think know where you’re getting at”, James said dejectedly.

Mike needed to put an end to that because he felt like James was heading in the wrong direction, so he held out his hand in a stopping motion. “No, shut up and let me talk.”

James looked taken aback by that, so Mike quickly barreled on before the other man found his voice again.

“I had a really good time sleeping with you these last two years. It was fun, right? And I thought nothing of it, because you were already my best friend, and nothing ever changed between us. Until the other day when I got scared, which is why I wanted to stop this. But these last two weeks were so strange, James. We don’t talk anymore – and that’s normal, you don’t normally stay in touch with your fuck buddy once the arrangement is over. But you’re also my best friend. And I’ve been missing my best friend.”

He paused, contemplating how to go on. James had his hands in his pockets and was studiously looking down. “So you want to be just friends again?” and _God_ , the bitterness of that statement made Mike’s heart ache.

“Do you know why I ended our arrangement?”, he asked. James shook his head, so Mike continued. “Because I realized I have feelings for you. Romantic feelings. And I didn’t want to get hurt because I didn’t think you felt the same.”

At that, James’s head snapped up to look at him, mouth agape in wonder, but didn’t say anything, clearly still afraid to put himself out there.

So Mike asked: “Do you want to go on a date with me?”

The wide smile and crinkled eyes that James gave him suddenly made everything worth it. “Yes, of course!”, he said and kissed Mike.

It was so different from any of their previous kisses had been. It was soft and tasted of the panini James had had for lunch. It was relief that Ben’s meddling had steered Mike in the right direction, it was a thousand _please stay_ s and _don’t make me go_ and _one more hug_ combined. It was a hundred conversations left unfinished.

But mostly, it was happiness.

~~

Mike was incredibly nervous for their first date. They knew each other by heart already, but Mike still felt like he needed to impress James. His fingers were clammy when they sat down in the restaurant, so he almost spilled his wine glass five minutes in. But then he noticed how shaky James’s hands were when he handed his menu back to the waiter and realized that he was just as nervous as Mike.

The conversation flowed easily, and Mike didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t swooning when James folded back the arms of his shirt during the main course. They were utterly on the same wavelength, and walked along the Thames for almost two hours, not really learning new stuff about the other, but getting to know each other from a different point of view.

Their kiss goodnight made Mike weak at the knees.

~~

They didn’t sleep together until the fifth date because Mike retained he was a classy gentleman (never mind the fact that he had literally sucked James off at work only months before, where coworkers could have easily walked in on them). It was gentle and slow, and full of giggles and kisses. It was so much better than he could have imagined, and he hoped he wouldn’t ever lose what they had unknowingly worked towards for two years.

~~

Ben found out immediately that everything between Mike and James had worked out because Mike told him immediately. And gave him an expensive cheese wheel as a thank you the day after his and James’s successful first date, because they would’ve probably continued ignoring each other until one of them left the company if Ben hadn’t meddled.

Jamie and Barry were weird… because it somehow didn’t enter their minds that Mike and James were really dating. They put Mike in the hotseat of another _Pretentious Ingredients_ video and when he tasted a champagne truffle oil, he declared “James would really love this!”

“You’ve been mentioning James a lot this video, do you have a crush on him?”, Barry teased, and Jamie started chanting “Mike has a crush on James, Mike has a crush on James.”

Mike laughed at his friends’ antics, but agreed: “I do, actually, yes.”

And didn’t even think of it again when that entire section was missing from the final cut of the video, because they frequently dropped products that ended up being problematic, were superfluous to the rest of the video or didn’t get enough of a reaction out of the people in the hot seat.

~~

He didn’t realize until much later that Barry and Jamie had made Ed take that part out because they were worried they’d been teasing Mike about an unrequited crush and didn’t actually want the entire Internet to know about it.

Which was sweet, but the entire office was well aware of the relationship, except for Barry and Jamie.

How they found out? Well.

Mike and James came into work the morning after their first anniversary. Mike was giggly because James had been stitching him up all the way from his flat to the studio.

They greeted Barry and Jamie who were gathered around the coffee maker with their morning beverage. “Someone’s in a good mood!” Jamie waggled his eyebrows.

“Had a great night”, James said and put an arm around Mike’s shoulder, pulling him in close. Mike loved the blush that crept up his boyfriend’s neck, that apparently just the thought of him could still elicit such a physical reaction.

“Oh yeah?”, he looked up and smiled at James.

“Yeah”, James whispered back, and their faces were so close that it was just natural for Mike to lean up and press a kiss onto James’s lips.

It was short, but then he got lost in those green eyes and didn’t notice that Jamie and Barry had fallen completely silent, until Jamie began: “Soo… how long have you two been dating?”

And then it clicked for Mike. Those two had somehow missed or misinterpreted every show of PDA between him and James for the past year, and assumed that they were still just friends.

But because he couldn’t believe that two of his lifelong best friends – whom they worked with every single day – had not noticed their relationship, he couldn’t help but torture them at least a little bit. So when James answered Jamie’s question with “A year”, Mike mischievously tacked on “but we’ve been fucking for almost three.”

And then gleefully watched Jamie turn red and Barry spit out his coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)  
> I've been working on this fic for over a week now, and now it's 5 AM, so please do leave a comment if you enjoyed it <3


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